The Importance of Being Link
by A Perplexing Puzzle
Summary: Link finds himself a foreboding sword in the middle of nowhere and thinks he might as well pick it up. What could possibly go wrong? i.e. an un-serious Ghirahim & Link buddy comedy that I've decided to continue. Don't expect a lot of PLOT out of this...
1. The Hyrule Compendium Needs an Upgrade

_**Sword of Demise.**_

_A cursed weapon once wielded by the king of all evil. According to legend, this unbreakable sword has survived since the birth of Hyrule. _

Link looked down at the short description scrolled across his Sheikah Slate, and then back at the sword in front of him, considering. It wasn't exactly strange to find large, foreboding swords abandoned in the middle of nowhere these days, so that wasn't what made him pause. To be honest, he wasn't sure why he'd decided to exercise caution now when he'd never noticed such a thing in his nature before, except that this whole situation gave him _bad vibes_. Maybe it was the sword that made him inexplicably uneasy, or maybe it was the claw-like stone formations of the Breach of Demise above, but either way he had the uncomfortable feeling of ants marching up and down his spine.

Then again, it might have just been that dubious food he ate for lunch. He should have known that one would come back to bite him.

Still, deciding to employ prudence for the first time in what little he remembered of his life, Link sat back on his heels and began mentally composing a list of pros and cons. Free sword? A pro! _Cursed _sword? ...Yeah, that was a con. "Wielded by the king of all evil" was probably a con, too, but it was also really cool, so he counted that as neutral.

_Unbreakable, _though? That was a pro. A _very big _pro. Cursed or not, that was worth roughly five points on the pros list, considering Link's track record with swords.

Hanging the Slate from his belt and clapping his hands abruptly, Link made up his mind. A sword was a sword was a sword, and Link needed swords. He'd picked up a hundred swords already and never once regretted it.

After all, Link thought as he reached for the hilt, what was the worst that could happen?

Much later, when all was said and done, Link would still insist that what happened next wasn't necessarily "the worst." As it was, though, the surge of black and white diamonds that swallowed the sword at his touch caught him off guard, and he fell backwards in shock, watching the flurry of shapes rise higher. Dimly, Link considered that he might take the phrase "cursed weapon" a bit more seriously in future escapades—but almost as soon as he finished that thought, the flow of diamonds vanished. Instead of the empty space they had occupied, though, there now stood… huh.

Link tilted his head, staring up at the back of a pointed red cloak. The Hyrule Compendium hadn't mentioned _this. _

"I swear," the man who had once been diamonds growled, and Link jerked in surprise as a number of pointed daggers appeared to hover in midair, aimed directly at his face. "If one of you brutes has attempted to pick me up _again, _I'll_— _"

The unfinished threat cut off as he turned, his gaze trailing to settle on Link on the ground. He looked as astonished as Link felt, which was somehow emboldening. Weakly, Link offered him a wave.

"You're not a Moblin," the man said slowly, with such doubt that Link almost paused to check before shaking his head. "No, you're much too scrawny for that."

Still, the daggers didn't vanish as he leaned in closer. _Much _closer. So close that the only way to regain any sort of acceptable distance between them would be to fall flat on his back, something that Link was seriously considering doing.

The man's eyes glinted mischievously as he brushed back unnaturally straight hair—so he could see, Link assumed, based on how it kept trying to fall into his eyes.

"Bit pretty, aren't you?" was his eventual assessment as he stood up straight again, and Link might have spoken up defensively if he hadn't been so relieved to have his space back. "And of _course _you had to be blonde. Still, beggars can't be choosers." Drawing himself up, the man struck a performer's pose, his arms spread out theatrically as he tossed his head. "So, human, you wish to bear my sword?"

Link wanted this less than he had a minute ago, but wondered if that would be rude to say.

"I, um, didn't realize it had an owner," he hedged, crawling back slowly and wondering if he should try to make a break for it. Even if he could get his shield out in time, he'd have a job of it blocking all those daggers. "You know what, though? I touched it without bothering to check, and that one's on me. Maybe I should just—"

"Nonsense!" the man interrupted him, his eyes positively glittering now as he watched Link's ineffective retreat. Stepping forward casually, his foot just so happened to catch the edge of Link's cloak, holding him in place. "The sword is not mine, you silly child. I _am _the sword!"

Catching Link's blank look of confusion, he sighed.

"Maybe that's too much to explain right now. Would you at least allow me to vent before you go scampering off?" he asked, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead and doing the best impression of a person draped dramatically over a bed that anyone without a bed could possibly do. "You can't imagine how it's been for me these past few years."

Link looked from the man, to the sword, to the dying valley around them, and thought he could take a guess.

"Rough?" he asked, and the man's eyes flashed with vindication.

"Rough!" he cried in agreement, throwing himself backwards into a chair made of diamonds that hadn't existed only a second before. Link had just enough time to yelp as the ground shifted beneath him before he, too, was pushed up into an almost identical chair, the two of them seated across from each other for all the world as if they were enjoying a friendly tea party in a parlor. At knifepoint. "It was hard enough just escaping the demon realm in the first place, I'll have you know. This isn't like the old days. Such a thing hasn't been done in thousands of years…"

Groaning internally, Link realized he was in this for the long haul, and shifted to make himself comfortable. Maybe if he snuck out the Sheikah Slate and warped himself out of here, this man (Sword? Demon?) wouldn't realize what he was after until it was too late.

"...and after all that effort spent escaping a literal hellhole, where should I wind up but _here_, the surface's own literal hellhole." He scowled fiercely, his floating daggers spinning in agitation. "Do you know what manner of creatures have attempted to wield me since I ended up stranded here?"

Again, Link thought he could guess.

"Moblins?"

"Moblins!" The man collapsed against his chair, affronted. "Can you imagine it? The nerve of those beasts, thinking themselves worthy of wielding such… perfection." A wave of his gloved hand somehow managed to capture the entirety of his being. "Not that humans are much better of course, but you _are _less filthy, which counts for something. If you only knew the grandeur of he who once wielded me…"

"The king of all evil," Link said promptly, starting to enjoy the feeling of being right—though it occurred to him as soon as he said it that he might have held that one closer to the chest. The man's rant halted, and he pinned Link with a thoughtful stare.

"You're remarkably well informed for a human," he said, sitting up slowly. "Have legends of the Demon Lord Ghirahim persisted for so long?"

"The… king of all evil?" Link tried again, though this time he thought he'd missed his stab in the dark. Sure enough, the man smirked at him.

"Not quite. It was Demise who ruled over the underworld once, breaking into the world above to challenge the goddess herself… and I, Lord Ghirahim, stood by his side as his loyal sword. Those were heady days, to be sure…" He faded off artfully as if caught up in memories before dismissing it all with a quick shake of his head. "But there's no use dwelling on the past. I would usually prefer that you mind the 'lord' when you address me, but as you'll be carrying my sword for the foreseeable future, perhaps I can allow a more casual form of address. What are you doing?"

Link froze, his hand caught halfway to his Sheikah Slate.

"Nothing at all," he lied. "Listen, I don't think I ever agreed to…"

Ghirahim raised an eyebrow, the daggers inching in closer, and Link had an unrelated change of heart.

"How cursed is the sword, really?" he asked instead, reluctantly withdrawing his hand. "Very cursed, or like… a little cursed…?"

"Not cursed at all," Ghirahim assured him pleasantly. "It even comes with the benefit of my company, so you could almost say it's blessed."

Incredibly cursed, then. Link chewed on his lip in thought.

"Is it really unbreakable?" he asked abruptly. Beggars couldn't be choosers, after all, and even with Ghirahim to contend with, the pros still outweighed the cons. "I break a lot of swords."

"...Concerning." Ghirahim frowned. "But no, that won't be an issue. My blade will remain utterly unscathed, even in your dubious care."

Link nodded, telling himself that he probably shouldn't test that.

"What about the daggers?" Link said. "Do they just follow me around, or…?"

Smiling at Link for just long enough to show off his pointed canines, Ghirahim snapped, and the daggers vanished. Finally, Link gave in.

"Fine," he said, clapping his hands decisively. A sword was a sword was a sword. "I'll get you out of here. I'm going to Rito Village, though, so if you had somewhere else in mind, you'll just have to wait."

Ghirahim opened his mouth as if he would retort, only to pause thoughtfully.

"I… have no specific plans, I'm afraid," he admitted. "For so long, the only goal was to escape the demon realm, and then to escape this valley. I know little of how the world has changed in my absence." He paused. "Do humans still live in the sky?"

Link's brow furrowed. "Not anymore."

"Hmm." Ghirahim shrugged, standing gracefully as the chairs beneath them vanished. Link let out another yelp, dumped unceremoniously onto the ground. "I suppose this Rito Village works as well as anywhere else, for now. What business do you have there?"

Scowling as he dusted himself off, Link pointed to far distant Vah Medoh, barely visible past the pitted, alien cliffs surrounding them.

"Bird needs help," he said succinctly. As the only Divine Beast he'd caught sight of so far, it seemed as good a place to start as any.

"I… see," Ghirahim said doubtfully. "You think yourself some kind of hero, then?" His eyes narrowed slightly. "How _do _you break so many swords?"

It was Link's turn to shrug, wrenching his sword from the ground and giving it a few good swings before hooking it against his back. Yep, this sword would do nicely. He wondered if there was a talus nearby to test it out on.

For the first minute of their journey together, Ghirahim was quiet, and Link took a moment to appreciate the silence. He thought it might be lacking in the near future.

Sure enough, they had barely gone fifty feet down the valley before Ghirahim had something else to say.

"I don't think I caught your name," he mused, and Link watched him out of the corner of his eye. Falling into step beside him, Ghirahim had taken to staring at Link suspiciously. "I'd prefer not to address you as 'Hero,' for… personal reasons."

The request was reasonable enough, and Link nodded.

"It's Link."

Turning to face the road ahead, it took him a good few paces to realize that Ghirahim had stopped short. Pausing to look back at him, Link frowned. "What?"

"Link," Ghirahim said flatly. "Your name is Link."

Link nodded in confusion, and Ghirahim's mouth twisted.

"You're not, by any chance, on a goddess-given quest to save the world, are you?"

"Actually, I think that's the general gist of it, yeah," Link said. "Why?"

Ghirahim looked at him for another moment before pinching his nose between his fingers, staring up at the sky with a resigned sigh.

"Can I tell you something, Link?" he said at last, speeding up to fall back into pace beside him. Link tilted his head curiously.

"What's that?" he asked, and Ghirahim grimaced.

"Karma's got its kiss for me."

* * *

Hours later, camped beside a fire at the edge of Ludfo's Bog and on the verge of falling asleep, Link sat up suddenly.

"You really weren't going to let a Moblin carry you at all?" he asked the sword-man-demon who sat cross-legged beside him, staring into the fire with no apparent intention of falling asleep. "Not even to get out of there?"

Ghirahim spared him a scornful glance.

"Have _you _ever touched a Moblin?" he asked, shuddering.

Nodding slowly, Link laid back down. Point taken.


	2. Tabula Rasa

...Yeah, this got continued. Sorry about that. Many thanks to Zephiraz, who puts up with me throwing ideas at him and contributes to the funnies.

* * *

"That," Ghirahim said, "is a bird."

Link didn't respond, his brow set in a confused furrow. The two of them had wandered for most of the morning over this grassy plain, dotted now with strangely circular stone arches—_not _towards the Divine Beast, as Ghirahim had brought up several times, though Link still didn't see why that mattered to him. The sound of distant music had proven an impossible lure to resist out here in the middle of nowhere, and the lilting song hovering through the air had grown louder and clearer as they walked, until they discovered…

"It's a bird," Ghirahim insisted. "Just look at it! It's a Loftwing in clothes."

Link's head tipped to the side, and he tucked that away with every other reference Ghirahim had made since they met that he didn't understand.

"I think you're wrong," he said slowly, ignoring Ghirahim's affronted look, "but I don't know enough about birds to say why. Look at him, though, he's playing a—" Not knowing the word, Link sawed his hands back and forth a few times. "An instrument."

"That doesn't make him any less a bird," Ghirahim pointed out, and Link paused to consider that logic.

"If he could talk, would he still be a bird?"

"He has wings," Ghirahim said impatiently, as if that was the final say on the matter. "And feathers!"

"Look, I'm just going to go up there and _ask _if he's a bird," Link decided, clapping his knees and rising from his observational crouch. Standing tall beside him, Ghirahim had made no such effort to remain circumspect, but as far as Link could tell, the maybe-bird in question hadn't noticed their approach either way. "Are you coming?"

"To watch the two of you squawk at each other? No thank you," he sniffed. "You can inform me later that I was right."

Ghirahim dissolving into diamonds wasn't entirely unexpected given that he'd done it before whenever walking became _boring, _and Link sighed as those diamonds slammed against the sword on his back, leaving him in temporary solitude. It just didn't seem exactly right to him. Dragonflies had wings, and—and arrows had feather fletching. That didn't make them birds.

The logistics of catching the maybe-bird's attention provided a distraction from his musings, though. Scrambling up the step-like stones that he had chosen as a perch, Link waited awkwardly to be noticed for a moment before tapping him lightly on the shoulder.

"Umm…"

"Oh!" The maybe-bird's song cut short with a discordant wheeze as he whirled around, and Link leaned back carefully, his hands planting themselves automatically on his hips. "I did not hear your approach! I was lost in this song written by my late teacher. He… passed away several years ago, you see, and this was the last song he taught me." His tall, blue crest of feathers drooped despondently, only to stiffen again in shock as he caught sight of Link's Slate. "Th-that there, on your hip! ...No. I'm sorry—it's nothing." He looked away. "I didn't mean to pry."

Link's mouth was already open, the question that had motivated his approach burning the tip of his tongue, when he hesitated. Would _he _be prying if he asked? That had to be rude, right? You probably couldn't just _ask _someone if they were a bird.

"No worries," he said instead with a shrug. Maybe if they talked for long enough, the subject would come up organically.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the maybe-bird said, smiling warmly as if to put their awkward start behind them. "My name is Kass. As a bard, I spend my days traveling this land in search of ancient songs. I know a song about this place, in fact." He nodded towards the stone rings that had already caught Link's interest, holding up his instrument. "Would you like to hear it?"

With abrupt, consuming certainty, Link realized that he would.

It wasn't much later that Ghirahim reappeared in a cloud of diamonds to discover Link shooting arrows through stone rings.

"What are you doing?" he said in Link's ear just as he released his next shot. The arrow flew wide, whizzing well outside the arch he'd been aiming for, and Link looked ruefully back at him. Ghirahim already possessed an uncanny knack for emerging from his sword at the exact moment most likely to make Link jump.

"Shooting arrows." Link broke into a jog towards where the arrow had vanished, Ghirahim following after him with long strides. He didn't have enough money _or_ arrows to leave them lying around in the grass.

"Yes, but _why?" _

"There should be two of these rings that I can actually shoot through with the same arrow." Link explained distractedly. "I just haven't figured out which ones they are yet." Or could he solve the riddle if he shot through one ring, picked up the arrow, and then shot through another with the same arrow? How had the song gone again?

"I see." Strangely, Ghirahim sounded unimpressed. "And this is going to accomplish…?"

Ghirahim's expectant look was met with a helpless shrug as Link bent down to yank his errant arrow free. Who was he to not do what a song told him to?

"At least tell me that I was right," the demon lord grumbled at last while Link looked around, half-listening. That pair of rings nearby looked promising. "Three magical words that I want to hear from you, Link: _'you were right.'" _

"Right about what?" Link asked, starting to line up his shot, but then he blinked and remembered.

"The bird!" Ghirahim cried out in anguish, with a wide-armed gesture towards Kass still perched on his stack of stones. "_The bird! _You talked to the bird, didn't you? Is he or is he not a bird?"

Kass played placidly on, too caught up in his music to notice Ghirahim's shrieking. Kass the maybe-bird was not very observant, Link thought.

"It… never came up," he admitted. Pausing in thought, he added, "You were wrong about him squawking, though. I don't think he's a bird."

Ghirahim's glare seemed the sort that might quickly transform into daggers, and Link tried to think of something helpful to say.

"He is a _bard, _if that helps," he offered.

It didn't.

* * *

"I've figured out what's wrong with you," Ghirahim announced later that evening, with the grave air of one pronouncing condemnation. Reconsidering his words, he amended them to add, "_One _thing that's wrong with you."

Link looked up from watching his eggs, lined up carefully by the fire.

"What's that?"

"You—" Ghirahim jabbed an accusatory finger at him, "—are a blank slate."

Nodding, Link turned back to his eggs. A few had already exploded when he'd let them sit for too long, and another handful had cracked when he tried to set them on the flames, but he thought this newest batch might cook into something edible.

If not, there were plenty of eggs where these ones came from. The trees in this area were full of them.

"Your response only proves my point," Ghirahim insisted. "I had considered that I might try to _mold you in my image _or something of that nature, except I don't think there's anything to you to mold! You are an empty vessel, you have all the determination of driftwood—"

"Well, that's not true," Link objected, frowning. Not that the first part wasn't pretty spot on, of course—impressive, considering that he hadn't even mentioned amnesia yet.

He wondered suddenly if this might be the time to bring it up—he had yet to find a way to say it outright that didn't make everyone involved uncomfortable, and so preferred to let the subject come about naturally—but Ghirahim was already speaking again.

"You think not?" he said scornfully. "Come over here and let me show you something."

Looking reluctantly down at his eggs, which were fast approaching that thin line between cooked and vaporized, Link stood, walking over to where Ghirahim laid draped against a fallen log. The demon sword didn't bother to raise himself, flicking a lazy hand towards the forest floor. Peering in closer, Link noticed a line of ants streaming along towards some distant goal, barely visible in the fading light.

"Look at those insects," Ghirahim instructed him, so he did. "They have a destination in mind, right? Somewhere they want to reach?" Abruptly, his gloved thumb came smashing down on the line from above, catching a few unfortunate ants mercilessly beneath it.

Link frowned. "What are you—"

"Just watch."

The ants who had watched their companions die seemed not much put out by the experience. There was a bit of confused dithering on the back end over how to resolve the broken line, but by the end of it they were flowing along just as smoothly as before, dodging around the thumb in their path.

"These _ants _have more drive than you do, Link. Do you know what you would do if an enormous thumb appeared in your path one day?" Blinking, Link considered the strange scenario, but Ghirahim was already telling him. "You would wander off to the side, forever… and ever… and ever, and never remember that you were going anywhere else to begin with."

"You're exaggerating," Link said, and Ghirahim raised an eyebrow.

"Am I? Tell me, then: are we currently traveling towards that floating stone bird in the sky?"

"Well… no." Link had meant to turn back towards it once the riddle of the rings was solved, but then he'd noticed a mountain glowing in the distance. Mountains didn't usually do that, in his experience.

"I rest my case," Ghirahim said in smug satisfaction, withdrawing his thumb and flicking dead ants off the white leather.

Link watched the trundling ants for another moment, and was reminded of what he'd left unattended when he heard a loud, whistling splat behind him.

"You exploded my eggs," he told Ghirahim with a mournful sigh, straightening up and trying to remember which of the nearby trees he hadn't climbed yet. "Do _you _want me to help the bird?" He hadn't assumed that Ghirahim would care one way or another.

"What I _want _is to not spend the rest of your life watching you flounder through the wilderness," Ghirahim groused. "What a century in miserable solitude did not do to my mind, a decade with you just might, and I don't care how pretty you are to look at."

"You think I'll live another ten years?" Link asked, and Ghirahim shrugged.

"It's a generous estimate."

Grappling a tree by the trunk, Link hoisted himself up, his shirt catching against the bark as he shimmied his way to the top. No eggs.

"You can't just _not _go check out a glowing mountain," he said, falling back down with a grunt. He was determined to make these eggs work, and not only because he was hungry. Something told him that if he could only unravel the mysteries of food, his life would improve dramatically as a result.

"_You _can't," Ghirahim corrected him, his eyes falling shut wearily. "And that's your problem."

Maybe he had a point, Link conceded, climbing another tree.

It wasn't until later, crouching protectively over his fire with the newest batch of eggs simmering happily in their shells, that Link realized that they had never come back around to amnesia. He glanced over towards Ghirahim, still reclining against his log in a fit of performative despair. It might cheer him up if he found out that he was right. Should he try to bring it up now?

...No, Link decided as he reached his hand into the fire, hissing and juggling his blackened egg while he waited for it to cool. No, the conversation had moved on since then. Now it would just be weird.


	3. Ghirahim Takes Charge

I was going to update tomorrow, but then I remembered that I'm going on a road trip today and it'll be a lot easier to post before I go... so here it is early! Despite early appearances, this story should not be misconstrued as having a "regular update schedule."

* * *

By the time the sun rose the next day, the green light illuminating the mountain had vanished, and Ghirahim had something to say—something very important, Link could only assume from the way that the side of Ghirahim's boot nudged him insistently from sleep.

"I've been doing some—oh, knock that off!" he snapped as Link shot up from his blanket, swinging his fists and blinking. "I've been doing some thinking, and we simply cannot go on like this. You've had your turn being in charge, and have failed spectacularly at getting anything accomplished. I think it's for the best that _I _take over this little partnership of ours, so from here on out, I expect you to do what I say."

Looking up at him, Link rubbed his eyes in sleepy confusion. Had he been in charge all this time? He certainly hadn't told or expected Ghirahim to do anything—just carried that sword around for him like he'd asked.

"Do _you _know where we are?" he asked, and Ghirahim's supercilious smirk faltered slightly.

"Well… no, but I would _like _to know, and that makes a world of difference."

"Oh." Link would have liked to know, too. It was just that the directions he'd had from the last stable hadn't accounted for all the detours he would take, and approaching the nearest tower was a… challenging prospect. "So… what do you want me to do?"

"Now, don't give me that—" Ghirahim stopped short, glaring at him suspiciously. "You're not going to argue?"

"No, it makes sense," Link said, nodding. It might even be nice to let somebody else make the decisions for a change. Ghirahim wouldn't have been his first choice, necessarily, but it wasn't like there was anyone else around offering.

"Well… good, then." Ghirahim smiled exultantly. "_ Good! _That's the first reasonable thing you've said since we met. Now, pack up your things. I want to get an early start."

"Do I get to eat breakfast before we leave?" Link asked, hearing his stomach complain as he started to rise, and Ghirahim hummed in thought.

"Oh, why not?" he decided good-naturedly. He seemed in a chipper mood now, practically waltzing along the edge of their campsite as he surveyed the land sloping away beyond. "I can be magnanimous when I want to be. One thing I must insist on, though," he added, his nose wrinkling as he glanced at the burnt-out campfire from the night before. "No more eggs."

Link thought he could live with that.

Luckily, a sweep of the nearby area revealed a hidden feast of food that he'd missed the night before under the lesser light of the stars, with enough roots and herbs and mushrooms to last him at least all day. Munching happily on a carrot, Link watched Ghirahim pace and plan.

"So where are we going?" he asked, when Ghirahim had still said nothing else. Rito Village would be ideal, of course, but with four Divine Beasts in trouble, he figured that almost any direction would bring him towards someone who needed his help. Then again, he _was _curious to know what could make a stone bird float like that… but that kind of curiosity was why Ghirahim was in charge now in the first place.

Ghirahim glanced back at him.

"You really have landed us in the middle of nowhere," he muttered, though he sounded more focused than irritated. "What do you know about that castle in the distance?"

"The one with the swirling vortex of darkness around it?" Link asked, and Ghirahim rolled his eyes.

"No, the other one."

"I wouldn't go there," Link said, taking another loud _crunch _out of his carrot for emphasis. Ghirahim twitched a bit, but nodded.

"Fair enough," he mused. "And you don't know of any other towns nearby? Anything at all resembling civilization?"

Link shook his head. Somewhere like Kakariko or Hateno Village was probably what Ghirahim had in mind, and though the Sheikah Slate could take them straight to either one in seconds, neither town was technically nearby.

"I see." Sighing, Ghirahim turned to the north. "We might as well press on towards Rito Village, then. You should know that I care not a whit for whatever _heroic quest _you've embarked on, but I'm eager to speak to somebody who is not a simpleton or a bird. It could be that the goddess owes me a debt of gratitude for keeping her chosen hero on track." He laughed as if at a private joke, swiveling on his heel and swirling his cloak decisively. "Now follow me."

Nodding, Link fell obediently into step behind him. He would have liked to explore the mountain a bit more—he'd never seen anywhere with so much food, and there was always the off chance that it might start glowing again—but Ghirahim was in charge now, so he bid the place a wistful farewell. Maybe when it was Link's turn to be in charge again they could find their way back.

* * *

Link learned something new about Ghirahim as they angled down the mountain towards the stone rings they had passed before, which was this: in a good mood, Ghirahim was quite talkative, with a tendency to reminisce (as opposed to Ghirahim in a bad mood, who was just as talkative but with the tendency to complain). The demonic sword took up a retrospective monologue the moment they started walking that Link only half-listened to, with a quarter of his attention reserved for eating another carrot and the rest of his mind occupied with not falling flat on his face.

"Demise would have slaughtered you in a second, you know," Ghirahim told him dreamily—impolite, Link thought, but much of what Ghirahim said was. "Though perhaps you stand some chance against this… what foe does the goddess mean you to face?"

"Calamity Ganon," Link said, and Ghirahim scoffed.

"_Calamity Ganon,_" he repeated, high-pitched and mocking. "The _true _calamity is how far the forces of darkness have fallen if the two of you are truly a match for each other. Did Calamity Ganon even plunder? Because we _plundered. _Why, when Demise led the demonic forces up out of the earth…"

Ghirahim's animated tales of destruction and petty theft should probably have interested Link, or at the very least disturbed him. Instead he felt his mind start to wander again, his pensive gaze falling down towards the wide field spread out beneath them. He thought that Calamity Ganon had done a pretty good job of destroying the world as far as such things went, even if he hadn't quite finished the job yet. Demise must not have managed it either if the world still existed, so Link didn't see what made him so much better than—

He stopped, the remaining stub of carrot falling from his mouth as his attention focused laserlike on the newest thing to cross his field of vision. _Horses. _

Link had caught a horse once out past Dueling Peaks—a spotted pink one he'd named Radish who liked apples, and had nearly kicked out half his teeth the first time he tried to mount her. He still liked to think that she might have survived that Guardian's blast, even if he hadn't seen her since their frantic dash out of Hyrule Field… but no matter how he'd looked since then, Link had never managed to find another herd.

Until now. Narrowing his eyes, Link picked out a bluish-gray horse grazing peacefully in the grass below. Maybe if he—

"Are you falling behind already, boy?" Ghirahim demanded from up ahead of him, and Link returned to himself with a start. "Keep up! We've no time for you to dawdle."

Of course. Ghirahim was in charge now, which meant no more getting sidetracked. Determinedly, he turned away from the horses, only to stop again in thought. Unless…

"You… want me to go faster?" he called back to Ghirahim, biting his lip.

Ghirahim graced him with his first incredulous glare of the day.

"Is that a trick question?"

"I was just wondering," Link said carefully. "Would you, being in charge and all, prefer it if I went faster?"

"What sort of—yes, you _dunderhead, _" Ghirahim growled. "I, Ghirahim, the person in charge, would _vastly _prefer it if you went faster. Now come—"

It was permission enough for Link, who jumped off the edge of the mountain. He thought he heard Ghirahim yelling something behind him, but it cut off soon enough as he whipped the paraglider from his pack. Link grinned as he floated down, thrilled by the compromise they'd reached. Ghirahim wanted to travel fast, and what could be faster than a horse?

His theory on the approach was that if he aimed his descent with perfect precision, he could mount the horse before it knew what had happened and… well, cling on for dear life, basically. Even though it made sense in his mind, he was still astonished when it actually worked. The horse bucked in surprise as he landed, trying desperately to throw him off while Link tried just as desperately to soothe it, but in the end Link managed to calm his trembling mount. Patting its neck and hushing it, he resolving to feed it a carrot from his pocket just as soon as he met back up with Ghira—

"What sort of stunt was that?" Ghirahim demanded, appearing in front of them in a furious flurry of diamonds, and that was where the trouble started. The horse, who had not expected Ghirahim to come popping out of midair in front of it, bucked wildly into the air with a startled scream. Link, who had not expected Ghirahim to appear _or _the horse's reaction, went tumbling off the back of it—and Ghirahim, who had not expected to appear beneath a frightened, kicking horse, was caught beneath it as it bolted, running him over in its mad gallop for safety.

Even that situation might have been salvageable if the horse's hoof hadn't caught onto the clasp of Ghirahim's cloak as it made its escape. Instead, Link sat up in the grass, dazed and sore, to see a shrieking horse dragging a shrieking demon lord frantically across the field, his red cape flapping cheerfully behind him.

Tempted to stare at the oddly captivating sight, Link instead shook himself into action. Shock alone must have kept Ghirahim from vanishing into midair—or worse, summoning his knives—and once that wore off, the horse would be lucky to survive his wrath unless Link acted fast. Fumbling the Sheikah Slate from his belt, he pulled up the Stasis Rune and aimed, managing (on his second attempt) to catch the frantic horse in its beam. Scrambling up towards the horse while Ghirahim scrambled away, Link managed a running mount onto its back just as the chains of time snapped, and its frenzied bucking resumed.

With enough patting and soothing and clinging he finally managed to calm the horse a second time, though it tossed its head as Link wheeled to face the Ghirahim-sized lump of red and white in the grass. Slowly, the Ghiralump unfurled, sitting up and arranging the points of his cloak into something resembling its usual fashion, and Link sighed in relief.

"You're okay," he said, smiling, though it struck him that maybe his assessment was premature. Ghirahim didn't _look _injured, but he was certainly shaking. "We can travel faster now. That's a good thing, right?"

Ghirahim said nothing, pulling himself to standing, and Link started to feel the tiniest bit nervous. He had never seen the pristine sword look quite so disheveled. His normally silky hair was a dirty, tangled mess, and long green streaks stained the white outfit beneath his cloak. Still, he could have looked far worse after being dragged like that by a horse.

"I, uh, think that thing with the diamonds spooked the horse," Link said, patting its side absently. "Maybe don't do that again?"

That earned him no response other than Ghirahim peeling a long, grass-stained glove from his arm, and Link wondered if he should take a more encouraging approach.

"You're doing really great for your first day in charge," he offered, giving Ghirahim a thumbs up. "Much better than I did on my first day in charge. It was, uh… I mean, you should have seen…"

Link learned something new about Ghirahim that day, which was this: in a good mood, Ghirahim liked to talk and reminisce, and in a bad mood, Ghirahim liked to talk and complain.

In a _terrible _mood, Ghirahim didn't speak at all—and somehow, as Ghirahim ran a finger up and down the mud and grass that marred his white outfit, dissolving it slowly away into tiny diamond flecks while Link fed his new horse 'Lucky' carrots from his hand, the silence between them was more unnerving than a thousand floating knives.


End file.
